This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture where you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music (including of course Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen), film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of…
Culture
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UNESCO Cuts Ties With Belgian Parade Over Anti-Semitic Float
Following months of outrage over an anti-Semitic float included in a popular Belgian carnival, UNESCO has severed ties with the festival, which the cultural arm of the U.N. added to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2010. In March, the Aalst Carnival included a parade float featuring Jews with hooked noses and side-curls perched atop…
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‘Uncut Gems’ Gives American Jews A New, Unflattering Mascot – And It’s A Triumph
If you see Josh and Benny Safdie’s “Uncut Gems” when it opens on Christmas Day, you will witness an under-explored facet of Jewish life. As the lights go down and Adam Sandler springs to frenetic life as protagonist Howard Ratner, a New York Diamond District sleaze, you might muse as to why it took so…
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Music The Meteoric Rise Of The A Capella Hanukkah Video — How A Holiday Force Awakened
Star Wars fans have been eagerly awaiting “The Rise of Skywalker,” the final film in a nine-part saga scheduled to be released on December 20. Another set of fans — perhaps smaller in number but nothing to scoff at — have been anticipating an entirely different kind of production that pops up around this time…
The Latest
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One For Each Night: A Guide To Hanukkah A Capella Videos
With nearly a decade’s worth of a capella Hanukkah music videos, where do you even begin? Here are a few of the best to get you started — one (or two) for each night. On the first night, watch “Candlelight” (2010), the Maccabeats’ parody of Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” that started it all. On the second…
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January 26: Los Angeles: Z3 Project Conference
The Forward will represent at the Z3 Project in Los Angeles on Sunday, January 26, where editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren will lead a panel and opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon will be a panelist on another. Z3, located this year at the Stephen Wise Temple, aims to promote Zionism and discuss its changing landscape, as well as…
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January 23: Washington D.C.: 2020 Through a Jewish Lens
Please join Forward editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren and Michael Barbaro, host of The New York Times’ podcast “The Daily,” as they discuss the tense 2020 political landscape through a Jewish lens at the historic Sixth and I synagogue in Washington D.C. Listen to the lively chat here.
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The Secret Jewish History Of Ludwig Van Beethoven
When you are 250 years old and world famous, you don’t have to wait until your birthday comes around to celebrate. Nor does the rest of the world. Which is why the celebration of a quarter of a millennium since Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth begins this December 16 (or 17; the date is a little…
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A Polish Jew’s Memoir Of Survival, Unnoticed For Decades, Arrives In Translation
From 1940 to 1943, Françoise Frenkel, a Jew of Polish origin, remained in hiding in Occupied France. Where she hid varied. At times of relative freedom, she lodged at a hotel with other expats. When Gestapo raids became more frequent, and the threat of deportation loomed, she hid with friendly acquaintances (a remarkably generous couple…
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WATCH: A ‘Star Wars’ Tribute To Hanukkah
“Star Wars” and the holidays don’t have the best history. The trouble began in 1977 — the first Hanukkah after the original “Star Wars” hit theaters. Toy company Kenner found itself unprepared for the demands of the season and, instead of gifting kids action figures of Luke, Leia and Chewbacca, parents were forced to give…
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Polish Politician Dissed Holocaust Commemoration — Then Sued The Curator Who Commissioned It
Continuing a trend, in Poland, of political objections to artwork concerning the country’s role in the Holocaust, a nationalist Polish governor is suing an art curator for defamation. The row began in October, Art Newspaper reported, when a public artwork by Dorota Nieznalski commissioned by Lublin-based art historian and curator Tomasz Kitliński was unveiled during…
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Is The West Suffering From Cultural Dementia?
London’s bookstores all seem to have a “doomsday” table right now — a prominent display of books on the end of democracy, the rise of Russia, the march to Brexit, and the collapse of the idea of Europe. On one of these tables, I encountered “Cultural Dementia: How the West Has Lost Its History and…
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